Agency creates ‘Angry Man,’ other harried folks who need to relax
By Gary T. Pakulski Toledo Blade
MONROE, MICH.: No one would confuse ”Angry Man” with designer Todd Oldham.
”Angry,” a middle-aged shopper wearing the sort of short-sleeve, button-down shirt that was once popular among computer programmers and factory foremen, is soothed by an encounter with comfortable La-Z-Boy Inc. furniture in one of a series of new TV commercials.
The humorous spots scheduled to debut next month are part of a marketing makeover for the Michigan furniture maker.
Struggling to boost sagging sales, the $1.6-billion-a-year firm has dumped its longtime advertising agency, shifted from a strategy that focused on a more stylish image, and will push to accentuate what executives see as La-Z-Boy’s biggest sales point: comfort.
The campaign by the inventor of the La-Z-Boy recliner includes a new slogan: ”Comfort. It’s what we do.”
Revenue fell 13 percent in the quarter that ended July 28 after declining 5 percent in the most recent fiscal year.
”We think we have a campaign that will lift our sales,” Chief Executive Kurt Darrow said last week at the firm’s annual shareholders meeting.
A company spokesman said later that J. Douglas Collier, vice president and chief marketing Please see La-Z-Boy, C10
Continued from Page C9 officer, was unavailable for comment. Executives don’t want to discuss the new campaign until it debuts, said spokesman Kathy Liebmann.
But Collier provided a preview during the shareholders meeting.
As part of La-Z-Boy’s earlier effort to boost its style quotient, executives hired Oldham to create a line of hip, contemporary furniture.
There are no indications that La-Z-Boy has ended its relationship with him. The Todd Oldham collection and the designer’s photo are featured in the summer catalog for the firm’s La-Z-Boy Galleries retail chain and on the company’s Web site.
However, Stan Diroff, who operates La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery stores in Toledo and Monroe, Mich., said some Todd Oldham lines have been discontinued.
La-Z-Boy is in talks with Oldham about extending the contract, which expires at the end of the year, said Shannon Quinn, a La-Z-Boy spokesman.
Recent research has prompted the company to redefine its assumptions about the type of people who are most likely to buy La-Z-Boy furniture.
It now sees its target market as both men and women between 35 and 65 years old who live in households with incomes between $50,000 and $150,000, Collier told shareholders.
Formerly, it defined its primary audience as women between 25 and 54.
Collier said research determined that La-Z-Boy customers are ”relaxed, unpretentious. They value the home as a refuge from a hectic world.”
Although most people are familiar with La-Z-Boy, the firm continues to wrestle with the perception that ”we are tired, we are dated, we are a ’70s brand,” Collier said.
To try to win over buyers, the firm replaced its ad agency of 15 years, W.B. Doner & Co., of Southfield, Mich., last spring with RPA, of Santa Monica, Calif. The new firm has created campaigns for brands including Honda and Acura automobiles. The trade publication Ad Week reported that the La-Z-Boy account is worth $35 million a year.
A series of seven TV spots, all set in La-Z-Boy retail stores, feature shoppers dealing with everyday stresses of modern life, including a woman talking to a salesman while carrying on a separate conversation on a hands-free mobile phone.
The ads will be shown on both network and cable TV.
